A New Webhead

Today, I'm reviewing this first trade paperback installment of Brian Michael Bendis's Miles Morales, from Ultimate Spider-Man to Amazing Spider-Man.  The story puts a new face behind the mask, but also gives this Spider-Man a few more abilities (a "venom sting and the ability to turn invisible).  I had originally dropped the Ultimate books from my reading list when Ultimate New York got flooded, killing off a slew of characters, but until then, I read some awesome books by the likes of Jeph Loeb, Brian K. Vaughan, and Mark Millar.

Looking back at '02 when the line was first started, I remember opening my first issue of Ultimate X-Men.  The concept was re-invisioning the Marvel U into characters more relatable to the demographic (at that time, generation Y).  Parallels were drawn and little tweeks were made.  I'd strongly suggest finding a copy of Ultimate Avengers: the Movie, an awesomely animated feature preceding the live action Avengers by six years.


This synopsis glosses over the story, so SPOILERS.


So here, I'm talking about the newest person with infected spider-blood.  Despite coming from a good household with loving parents, Miles has a very negative influence in his life, an uncle (a geared up Marvel villain) who charismatically appeals to the young teen.  When Norman Osborne tried to have the Parker radioactive spider replicated, the lab animal slipped away into Miles's uncle's bag during a break-in at the lab.

During another forbidden visit to his uncle's apartment, Miles gets bitten by this new spider and gets endowed with abilities similar to Parker's.  Like Peter Parker and Kamala Kahn, he comes from a lifestyle of being studious but not that popular.  As a recently accepted student at a school for the intellectually gifted.  I feel that this place of academic focus will not just help him in school, but in dealing with the abilities he discovers, and the extraordinary matters he encounters once having joined the Ultimates.

I think that there are bigger differences between Morales than merely race (the uncle differentiates Parker as "white Spider-Man").  Parker had been orphaned, and raised by a kindly aunt and uncle, with the uncle famously dying early in Parker's origin story.  Morales is also a gifted only child, but he's got both parents through this book.  Unlike the legendary Ben Parker, the uncle who influences this Spider-Man is a manipulative gangster who wants to use Miles to get himself further in the underworld.

By the end of the trade, both uncles have met their demise, but I was still yet to see how that affected Miles's relationship with his parents.  There was also a schoolmate blatantly watching as Miles confides in his best friend, and we don't see (at least in this book) what comes from it.

Inevitably Miles was going to join the mainstream "616" Marvel dimension after Secret Wars.  First the 616 Spider-Man gets stuck in the Ultimate dimension.  I thought that it was a little lame that when comparing characters in their counterparts, some differences that he pointed out were very plain, and in other characters it was more subtle.  I thought it was well written the way that he interacted with a grieving Aunt May, and learning that the Ultimate Gwen hadn't died, but in the comparisons between the Ultimates and their counterparts....  He notices that this Nick Fury is black, but not that this Tony Stark resembles  Robert Downey, Jr. much more closely?  At once point, he compares the two by calling the Ultimate Fury cooler, but when asked to describe the 616 Fury, all that Parker can offer is that Fury's "white"?  Is it some closely guarded secret that unlike this Fury, the 616 one is a cigar chomping older guy who goes stomping around in the SHIELD action uniform and  has a son that strongly resembles Ultimate Fury?  Storywise, it was a setback in my eyes to see scientist good at spotting details,  make comparisons on such a basic level.

When it comes to the art, I liked Sara Pichelli's drafting ability, but am uncomfortable with how many times she uses spread layouts.  I understand that she comes to comics with more a filmmaking perspective, but when presenting multiple panels to a reader at once, it can be difficult reading three

consecutive spreads in a comic medium where normally people read one page at a time.  Call it opportunist or excessive to use consecutive spreads, I've asked around and am not the only one who has found this layout pattern a little confusing.  It had me wishing that Chris Samnee had gotten a larger share of issues to illustrate in this book.  I do like Pichelli's giving Miles's mask wider eyes than Parker's.  It's like a caricature of the wide-eyed innocence innocence that Morales has compared to Parker and that the adult head is larger in relation to the eyes than an adolescent's.

I'd definitely suggest this book to other readers because it creates a great new character I look forward to reading more of in the future.  Later this year a 616 Spider-Man title by Bendis and Pichelli will launch, but I hope Pichelli goes easy on the spreads this time around.  As a reader, I'd like to put more focus on taking in the story than trying to figure out the sequence in which I should be taking it in.

Here, try.  These are three consecutive spreads, that are get bookended with one page layouts.